


when you're safe inside your room, you tend to dream

by lovelyflowersinherhair



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:29:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22749358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelyflowersinherhair/pseuds/lovelyflowersinherhair
Summary: “They’re your grandchildren,” he said. Alice glowered. “I mean, I get why it’s not what you wanted to do tonight,” he added hastily. “But, did you really want to go rent a room at the Five Seasons when I’m pretty sure that’s where the boy and Betty are?”
Relationships: Alice Cooper/FP Jones II
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Fall in Love with Riverdale: A Valentine's Event





	when you're safe inside your room, you tend to dream

“The twins are asleep,” Alice told FP, trying to hide the exhaustion in her tone. “I’m sorry that it took me so long to get them down.” 

To say that Alice found dealing with Jason Blossom’s children to be a trying misfortune was the understatement of the century, and she had decided that whatever punishment she should have had for not knowing that Harold had dabbled in the art of murder had been more than erased by her current living situation, which involved a seemingly never ending duty to care for the two children she had tried to insist that Polly have given up for adoption in the first place. The fact that Polly still had rights to the twins, and that those rights superceded Alice’s longing for a return to her sanity, was another thorn in her side. 

She had taken custody of the twins once she’d returned from the farm in what was supposed to be a temporary situation, but seemed to have no end in sight. Alice wished that she had left them with Cheryl and Toni in her less than charitable moments, like whenever Polly and her team of psychiatrists seemed convinced that caring for her own children would be too detrimental to Polly’s mental health, when no one cared about how it was affecting Alice’s. The fact that she had been forced into the role of parenting two children that -- through no fault of their own -- deserved better than the parents they had been saddled with, simply because she was Polly’s mother? Frankly, it was wearing thin. 

“I would have helped you, Al,” FP said from his position on their bed, where he had clearly decided to lounge in the middle of changing out of his uniform, and she managed to avoid wrinkling her nose at the fact that he was wearing shoes on her perfectly coordinated comforter, and using their decor pillows to rest his head. She wasn’t going to rise to such juvenile attempts to coax either a lecture or a ghost of a smile. Not when it was supposed to be Valentines Day and their plans had been ruined, thanks to her eldest daughter and the headache that was both Polly and her outpatient medical care team. “You know that, right?” 

“The person who  _ should _ be in charge of the care and keeping of her children, is currently out with her poor excuses for friends, I believe “socializing” was the term used at that  _ bullshit _ meeting I was forced to subject myself to earlier today?” Alice scowled. “I don’t need you to help me deal with Polly’s mistakes. I don’t need anyone to help me deal with them. She’s the one who should be dealing with them now that she’s  _ living here _ and not at Shady Grove, taxing the limits of my health insurance plan on an inpatient program that she  _ wouldn’t have needed _ had she had the sense not to involve herself in the farm in the first place. But, no. My opinions on Polly’s life weren’t “beneficial to her healing”, or some bullshit. Apparently it’s wholly acceptable to force me to upend my entire life while she does what? Lives high on the hog going out on the town with the River Vixens?” 

“They’re your grandchildren,” he said. Alice glowered. “I mean, I get why it’s not what you wanted to do tonight,” he added hastily. “But, did you really want to go rent a room at the Five Seasons when I’m pretty sure that’s where the boy and Betty are?” 

“What?” Alice demanded. “Elizabeth told me that she couldn’t watch the twins because she and Jughead were studying ‘Anatomy and Physiology’. She said nothing about getting a hotel room.” 

“Pretty sure that she was being coy,” he said with a smirk. “And do you really want to go out to eat tonight? You were always complaining in your articles about how annoyed you were about the ‘Valentine’s Dinner experience’, and yeah, you complained about Hal a lot, but you also complained about how busy the restaurants were and how you didn’t like to ‘mingle with the riff-raff’.” 

“I also don’t enjoy being forced to parent my grandchildren,” she pointed out. “What does temporary mean to these people? They sent her home, and she should be taking care of them, even if  _ I  _ find her parenting to be questionable at best.” 

“I know,” he told her, and he kicked off his shoes, somehow managing to land them where they were supposed to go, and slid off the bed. He crossed the room to where she was wearing holes in the carpeting, and took her into his arms, effectively stopping her in her tracks. “I get it, Al. It sucks. You don’t think that I know that? I don’t understand what the point of her being here if she’s not going to take care of them either.” 

“She wouldn’t even let JB watch them,” she told him. “They’re toddlers. Toddlers who are in bed. This is to punish me, I know it is. She’s pissed off that I shot Edgar and ruined her chance at happiness, and she’s angry that she’s banned from contacting Evelyn, and she wanted Cheryl to have custody of the children, and she’s taking her anger out on me because she thinks that being an adult with common sense is a reason to punish me.”

“So?” He said, and she felt his arms tighten around her. “So what she’s angry? She’s your child, and she’s under  _ your _ conservatorship, isn’t she?”

“Only because she’s mentally ill, FP.” 

“I know, Al,” he said. “She’s batshit. My point is that she’s pissed off at you, and you’re letting it get to you, and she  _ knows _ that you’re letting it get to you, so she’s gonna keep doing it. I know that you don’t want to be stuck raising the twins when Polly’s literally right there, but she  _ also _ knows that, and she’s manipulating people into ensuring that it still happens.” 

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” she whispered. “I just wanted one day where we could be a  _ normal _ couple, and go on a date like normal people, and have sex without being interrupted by everyone in our whole household, even if we had to pay for the privilege of it. I’ve never had a Valentine’s Day that wasn’t miserable and I thought that we could have a nice one and because I wanted to have something nice, she ruined it. She’s like her father. She knew what she was doing, and she didn’t care.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, and wiped away the tears that were threatening to escape down her face with the pads of his thumbs. “I don’t care about any of that shit, baby. We can order takeout and eat it in our pajamas. Watch one of those cheesy rom-coms you pretend not to like. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

She sniffled. “Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. “We can even hide up here and eat on the bed.”

“No one will bother us?” 

“Sounds nice, doesn’t it?” 

“Sounds perfect.” Her lips met his in a sweet kiss, and she ran her hands through his hair. “You should get changed out of that uniform, handsome.”

He smirked. “You want to watch?” 

She giggled. “You wanna put on a show?” 


End file.
